


oscillation

by shindouchrono



Category: Elsword (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Code: Battle Seraph, Diabolic Esper - Freeform, F/M, puns
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-03
Updated: 2018-03-03
Packaged: 2019-03-26 09:36:59
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,272
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13855074
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shindouchrono/pseuds/shindouchrono
Summary: “Can you smile?”Taken aback, Eve takes a moment of silence to process the words spoken to her. No, she’s already processed them. Add asked her a question.“I am capable of smiling.”Based off of suzukamizuchi's wonderful comic! Thank you for letting me write this! (http://suzukamizuchi.tumblr.com/post/151478313049/de-u-dont-have-to-act-tough-in-front-of-cbs)





	oscillation

Add’s chin rests in his hand, and he’s tilting his head, looking incredibly focused. To contrast, Eve watches his actions with a blank expression. Suddenly, he grabs her cheeks -- his face suddenly looks gleeful, playful even. As a Nasod, Eve had no reason nor way to produce sweat, but if she could, she _would_ be.

Add nods his head.

“Eve…”

His voice is gentle and soft, but with a teasing tone. There’s a dorky smile on his face. What would the word be for that? It’s something Rena used to describe many members of the El Search Party… What she said about Add, too… How he couldn’t express himself properly, or say ‘thank you’ to others.

“Can you smile?”

Taken aback, Eve takes a moment of silence to process the words spoken to her. No, she’s already processed them. Add asked her a question.

“I am capable of smiling.”

“Hooh… But let me guess, there’s no reason to do such a thing, kukuh…?”

Eve nods.

“Indeed.”

Add laughs -- but not his strange laugh. The laugh he did could sound… forced. His laugh just now was something else. Something more real.

What was that word?

“What about jokes? If I told you a joke, would you smile?”

“...I wouldn’t. As a Nasod, I --...”

He shakes his head, cutting her off. “Yeah, yeah. I’ll try anyways! Kukuhu... a little experiment!”

It didn’t seem like there was a way to say no. It didn’t matter one way or the other.

Add’s brows furrow, and his chin is back in his hand. “...A joke, huh… How about…” Add looks at Eve through the side of his vision. “...Elsword acting mature.”

“...?”

Add shrugs. “Yeah. I guess you couldn’t understand that type of thing, huh.”

“How rude.”

“Ah, so you did get it?” Add has a slight sparkle in his eyes -- or… eye. The one visible eye. The other was covered. Eve wondered if it would be shining, too.

“As the Queen of Nasods, I can understand anything. You must have explained incorrectly.”

Eve didn’t understand the face Add was making. Similar to disappointment…?

“I’ll try another one… What did the grape say when it got crushed?”

Eve stares blankly at Add. Her hands rest at her sides. There’s a chirp, far off in the distance. Then, a cool breeze.

“Grapes can’t speak.”

Add seems to be holding in laughter. “N...No… Well, kuku, it didn’t say anything… It just let out a little wine.”

Silence.

Add’s face slowly turned a bit red.

“...You… crush grapes… to… make wine. Surely, a Nasod knew that?”

Ah…

“Perhaps I won’t laugh because the jokes are unsatisfactory?”

At her words, Add’s face goes a bit darker. He laughs, but the false laugh. His shoulders are suddenly tensed up.

Eve suddenly realizes the word she’d been looking for.

 

'Cute'.

* * *

 

...Just like back then, Add’s shoulders are tensed up. However, it wasn’t like before. Now. Add was always tense. He looked like a spring pushed to its limits. One more moment, and he would surely snap and bounce away. Where would he go? Far away, somewhere in the distance where even Eve couldn’t reach?

“Add…” She calls, voice trailing off. He doesn’t turn all the way around, but she knows he heard.

Something that sounds like a sigh. “What is it?”

Eve walks closer. Her footsteps echo in the empty space they shared. He slowly lifts his head as Eve gets closer and closer. Their faces are close, and Eve stares straight into his eyes.

“Do you… remember…” She begins, each word slow, precise. “The word… that you always said to me... in the past?”

The feeling of Add’s hands playfully grabbing her cheeks… Yes, it was a long time ago, but it felt so far away. It was far enough away that she couldn’t even remember the warmth of his hands, even though Add was so close.

He looked so tired. The circles under his eyes were as dark as the exposed core of his heart. Add’s hair his messy, a perpetual bedhead. His brows are still furrowed.

Eve had no way to know, but that look in Add’s eyes seemed to be a glare. A glare of someone who’s been on an endless journey, a fruitless one -- an immeasurable amount of effort, and for what?

“...Eve. I’ve had enough of the past…”

Just like he did, all those years ago -- she grabs on his cheeks and stretches them. Add’s face was oddly malleable. The glare disappears. The furrowed brows are gone.

“It was… _‘smile’_.” She stretches his cheeks into a smile.

Somehow, without her notice, Eve had begun to smile softly, too.

Add’s face falls flat as soon as she lets go.

Eve presses her forehead into his chest. She can hear his heartbeat… It’s a bit faster than usual, but it was there. He was alive.

“If you had kept your eye patch, perhaps it would have been ‘all right’...?”

Add has a look of utter, utter confusion.

Eve places her hand over Add’s left eye, where the eye patch used to be.

...There’s no glimmer in his eyes. The joyful look Add once had would surely never return -- but Eve was a Nasod, furthermore, she was a Nasod who had discarded emotion further than any other, so this should be of no concern to her. It shouldn't be of any concern, but it was.

Add doesn’t laugh, but Eve didn’t expect him to.

 

The room is empty now. Add stands alone, fists clenched. He raises a shaking hand to cover up his left eye. He shuts his eyes, and when they open, his sclera have turned black.

He was inhuman -- but Eve wasn’t human, either. As a being separated from time and space, and one who had such an unsightly form… Naturally, that would make him a monster.

“It would have been… ‘all right’...”

Add’s whole body shakes. The force of his emotion cracks a hole in space-time. Then another, and another, and another. The space around him turns into nothingness. Put simply, it was nothing more than child’s play. It was _nothing_ , to do something like this! A feat that many couldn’t achieve in millions of years… Add ripped space-time with nothing more than a wave of his hand!

“Kuahaha… ‘All right’… Kuahaha!!”

His loud laughter echoes through the empty space. Add laughs and laughs, his voice being caught up in the rifts he had created. It oscillates and then shatters like glass.

Add’s laughing suddenly becomes distorted. He’s taking heaving breaths, and he’s bending down now.

Eve recognizes the sound, even though the last time she’d heard it was so long ago. A heartbreaking noise, the broken down cries of someone who pointlessly kept going. Someone who was determined, someone who couldn’t accept their painful ‘reality’ and chose instead to tear it all to pieces.

Even though she had long discarded her emotion circuits, staring at Add, hunched over like this, looking so suddenly small… Eve could feel a distant sense of loneliness.

The distance is closed before Eve can even make sense of her own actions. Her arms are wrapped around Add, who’s shaking violently.

In a moment like this, was it wrong to think kind thoughts? Would Add be uncomfortable if he knew the words circling around in Eve's head?

Add’s hand is gripping Eve’s tightly. Without thinking, she moves closer.

_Was it alright to think that such a broken existence…_

Eve’s lips press against Add’s cheek. His cheeks flush like they did so long ago, a memory so distant Eve feared it would disappear into nothingness. She pulls him closer.

_Could be so beautiful?_

**Author's Note:**

> Waaah, I've wanted to write this fic for so long, but I only recently got the courage to ask the artist of the comic about it. CBS/DiE is one of my favorite AddEve pairings, so I'm glad to see someone like minded...!
> 
> As always, thank you for reading my fics, and I hope you have a lovely day! If you enjoyed, please feel free to leave a kudo, a comment, or HMU on twitter @chronojetdragon! Writing commissions are still open, so if you liked this, and would like something catered to you... We can make that happen!


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